I: The Black Door, or, Hexes and Hormones, or, a Passage to the Old World

They were back in the circular room. Hermione marked another burning 'X' on the door they had come out of and Harry prayed for the doors to start spinning again, breathing a sigh of relief as the room creaked into motion again. Half a minute spun by in a blur of blue torchlight and red crosses. The doors started to slow down and he could see individual torches again. A click sounded as the room came to rest.

"Which door?" Ginny asked.

There was a moment's hesitation, and two masked figures burst through a door on the left. An Impediment Jinx clipped the shorter Death Eater and he crumpled to the floor. In the moment it took his partner to revive him, Neville made it to an unmarked door and went through it, the others following him. Harry and Luna were last through; Harry had barely closed the door when a chunk of wood was ripped out by his left ear, forcing him to duck to avoid a shower of splinters. He stumbled, righted himself and hurried on, giving his breathless thanks to Luna, who had stopped to help him. They were in a crescent-shaped room. Curved rows of stone steps, arranged in a shallow arc, led down towards a curious looking door which was raised on a cracked plinth. The whole room seemed to have been designed with the proportions of an amphitheatre in mind.

The door looked like a relic taken from an ancient civilisation. It was made from a black, grainless material, too dark for wood, too textured for metal, supported only by a doorway made of the same substance. A triangular handle of brushed silver was set into the right hand side. Crosses, spirals and other strange and intricately carved symbols ran in vertical bands down the door. The whole structure fascinated Harry, seeming to hint at an older, more potent type of magic than anything he'd encountered in the magical world yet, and for a minute he forgot all about looking for Sirius and just stood, gazing at the door in fascination. Then Luna placed a hand on his shoulder, silently urging him on, and he hurried after her.

Hermione and Neville were already firing spells at the door they'd come in through, trying to stop the Death Eaters following them. Ron and Ginny were hurrying down the steps, desperate to reach the freestanding door which seemed to be their only chance of escape. Ducking out of the line of spellfire, Harry and Luna wheeled round, intent on stalling the Death Eaters until Ron and Ginny could get the other door open. The two cloaked figures retreated momentarily, and there was a flurry of excited voices, which were duly silenced and replaced by a male voice barking orders. Then Lucius Malfoy strode in, blasting the rest of the door to tatters with consummate ease. Just behind him, Bellatrix Lestrange announced herself with a cackle. Harry went very cold.

"Potter", Lucius said curtly. Then he spotted Neville and gave him a sadistic grin. "Longbottom, is it? You must be well acquainted with my associate Bellatrix, then?"

Laughing, Lucius and Bellatrix started walking towards them, pausing to toss off a few minor jinxes as if to gauge how much of a threat the four Hogwarts students posed. And then without any warning Neville started sprinting towards Bellatrix, his wand completely forgotten in his desperate haste to reach her.

"Don't do it! She'll kill you Neville!" Hermione screamed, and Harry froze in horror for a moment before tearing after him, sure he was missing something in his desperation to reach Neville. Mercifully, he was quicker than his roommate, managing to tackle Neville before he could reach the end of Bellatrix's wand, sending them both of them tumbling down the long flight of steps. The world rolled past Harry as he made his way down in a tangle of limbs. The sharp ledge of a step came into focus, connected with his cheek and spun away. He closed his eyes, and the rest of his descent passed in dizzying darkness, landing hard on stone over and over again, until he came to a crunching rest at the bottom.

Harry hissed in pain and opened an eye slowly. A pair of eyes, brown and concerned, looked back at him. They blinked a few times. A crease formed between – between – Harry had forgotten what they were called. Anyway, how sweet; they were really worried about him. Eyebrows, that's what they were called. He noticed that the eyes blinking back at his were either side of a small nose lightly dusted with freckles. Something orange that smelt lovely was tickling his cheek, and for some reason all Harry could think about were flowers and hot chocolates and springtime. The eyes were the nicest though, he decided. The kind you could get lost in, he reckoned, and then immediately wondered what on earth had possessed him to think a thing like that. Maybe the fall had caused some damage. He suddenly remembered that two high ranking, highly trained Death Eaters were trying to kill him. For some reason, it didn't seem all that important.

Ginny looked down at Harry. Despite the numerous cuts and bruises he'd gotten from his tumble down the stairs, he was looking strangely cheerful.

"Are you alright?" She asked softly. Harry snapped back into focus, spending a moment looking thoroughly uncomfortable before sitting up.

"Yeah, fine. Are the others ok?"

"I think so", Ginny said, not sounding convinced.

Harry turned round. From this distance he could hear the black door humming with saturated magic. Ron was attending to Neville. Two clashes had broken out at the top of the room. Hermione was being backed into a corner by Bellatrix, who was keeping up a constant barrage of Avada Kedavras and Crucios. Poor Hermione was trembling, white-lipped, only just managing to avoid the onslaught of Unforgiveables. Luna and Lucius were duelling, dancing around each other in a whirl of blonde hair, until Luna noticed she had an audience.

"Summon me, Harry", she called, winking cheekily at him from across the room. Harry faltered for a moment.

"Accio – er – Luna!" He managed to finish with some conviction, and Luna sailed down to him, landing daintily in his arms.

"My hero", she whispered, grinning up at him, before being helped to her feet, completely oblivious to the sour look Ginny was giving her. Neville summoned Hermione, who came perilously close to being hit by a yellow cutting curse from Lucius. The six of them stood in a rough circle around the black door. Harry looked round desperately, all too aware Lucius and Bellatrix were descending towards them and they were effectively trapped. He began to realise the folly of rushing into the Department of Mysteries with only five friends, all of them overwhelmed against much older and experienced opposition.

"We couldn't get the door open", Ron said, silently firing a Leg-Locker Curse at Bellatrix, who sidestepped it easily and kept closing in on them. No-one answered him. Lucius and Bellatrix were only ten feet away now.

"What should we do with them, Lucius?" Bellatrix asked with a look of feral glee.

"Kill them", Lucius said, sounding supremely bored. "It seems Potter needs another reminder of what happens when he brings his friends with him for company on his little adventures. He seems to have forgotten about Cedric."

Bellatrix needed no further encouragement, firing a bolt of lurid green at Luna who did well to avoid it at such close range, and suddenly spells were being slung rapidly on both sides. Even outnumbered three to one, Lucius and Bellatrix always seemed to be in complete control, easily dispatching any curses sent their way and retaliating with volleys that kept threatening to get through the defences of the six teenagers; only a few seconds passed before Harry had to jump in front of Ron to deflect a curse his friend wasn't going to stop in time, and his momentum carried him forward to fall against the black door. It was warm to the touch. Resting a hand on it, he felt a responsive jolt of magic run up his arm, and before he quite knew what he was doing he was willing the door to open, and after a moment it silently complied and swung open. Ron and Hermione dived through and Luna managed to bundle Neville through just after them, the four of them vanishing as soon as they made it into the doorway, swallowed in a surge of powerful magic.

Lucius seized upon this lull in spellfire and concentrated all his efforts onto Ginny. She managed to deflect a few spells and dodge the darker looking ones until a venomous red bolt hit her square in the chest and she was lying on the floor, twitching and screaming in agony. Harry turned instantly, sickened by the sound and for a desperate second he nearly retaliated with his own Crucio but couldn't bring himself to cast it, opting for a Cutting Curse instead.

"Lacero!"

And Lucius had to cancel his curse to get a shield up in time, and Harry was acting purely on fear and adrenaline now, turning and sending Bellatrix's wand flying from her hand with an overpowered Expelliarmus which sounded like it snapped a few fingers too. He rushed over and bent down to scoop Ginny up, just as Lucius sent a spell over his head that reduced a sizeable chunk of wall to mere dust. And then Lucius made the mistake of fetching Bellatrix's wand for her, and Harry was through the door before either one of them could get a spell away.

For a moment a rushing sound filled his ears and his vision turned blue, like he was being pulled through a waterfall – and then he was through the door, landing hard on a stone floor, and Ginny landing on top of him a moment after. Then the door slammed shut, and they were enveloped in total darkness.

"Everyone alright?" Harry asked, and got four groans in response. He could feel Ginny trembling on top of him and felt a sickly wash of guilt rise in his throat. Lucius had been right; he had to stop getting other people involved and letting them get hurt in his place.

"Lumos", someone called weakly.

A pinprick of light blinked into existence, Hermione appearing behind it. They had to be in a large room; Hermione's spell hadn't done much to shift the darkness. Apart from the floor, which was incredibly dusty, Harry could only see the wall behind him and the door he'd just come out of. Everywhere else was the same shade of black.

Ginny was crying lightly into his chest.

Ron Hermione and Luna were sitting up and wincing, looking around from the light of Hermione's wand. Neville was next to him, looking more composed now they'd escaped Bellatrix. Bellatrix. Harry cursed and trained his wand on the door, expecting either Death Eater to come through at any moment. Nothing happened for several seconds. There was nothing to do other than wait; everyone wore matching looks of apprehension. The silenced stretched to half a minute.

"Harry, what happened to Ginny?" Neville asked.

Harry tried to steel himself against the sobs building in his chest. "Lucius hit her with the Cruciatus." Everyone gasped, and Ron made an awful choking noise. "It was only for three or four seconds," Harry added quickly, and then wished he'd kept quiet. As if trying to downplay it could make it any better.

Ron hurried over and Harry slowly lifted Ginny up, helping her into her brother's arms. He was struck at how light and fragile she felt. Not wanting the others to see him if he succumbed to tears, Harry stood up and approached the door and pressed an ear to it, fully expecting to hear voices and spellfire. It was completely silent. His scar, which had been a prickling blister of heat ever since he'd reached the Ministry, was now cool and painless.

"Where are we?" he said to no one in particular.

"Probably deeper into the Department of Mysteries", Neville said bluntly, speaking for the first time since they'd seen Bellatrix.

"Point me Sirius", Harry intoned, placing his wand in his opened palm. It twitched a few times and then started spinning round; just like the rotor on a muggle helicopter, he thought. Harry closed his hand around it, feeling more defeated than ever.

"You're under a lot of stress at the moment, Harry", Hermione said kindly, "that's probably why the spell didn't work."

"No, Harry's wandwork is fine", Luna said. "Perhaps Sirius isn't in any direction."

Hermione gave Luna a long-suffering stare but stopped herself from making a snide remark.

"Daddy always says there places you couldn't get to by normal means, no matter how far you go in any direction. Maybe there are places you can only reach by magic."